Fear in the New Seasons

As this school year starts in the middle of the chaos regarding COVID-19, I’m scared. I’m nervous and anxious for more reasons that the normal jitters regarding the beginning of the school year. The beginning of the school year since I have been in college has always been a little harder than I would like. After my freshman year at Concordia College, I moved in for

my sophomore year and dropped out on the first day. I proceeded to take a year off of school but went back to MSUM the following year. Ever since then, summer breaks scare me. The beginning of school is overwhelming, looking at all of the syllabi, the information unknown, feeling inadequate and incapable of learning all of this information. Add the fear I have that I may just drop out again, it makes it a little scarier. And now, add on COVID-19. The confusion of what classes are online versus in-person, which hybrid classes are meeting online which day, and if those are synchronous or asynchronous. The fear of missing class due to thinking it was online when it wasn’t or vice versa. The fear of being in a classroom with who knows how many other people, wearing a mask for an hour and a half. The fear of those interactions and if people will truly social distance. The fear knowing the probability that someone I will encounter may be working with individuals who are COVID-19 positive or may be carrying it themselves. Fear is encompassing my everyday thoughts. As much as I want to sit in this fear and hide from the world, hide from what is going on, hide from the fear that I can’t seem to escape, the world is still moving.

New seasons are hard. Change is hard. Even when the change is familiar. If it is just going from a school year to a new school year, or high school to college, changing jobs, moving cities or simply moving across the street, change isn’t always fun and often comes with the feeling of fear. I would like to say that I know where to go from here, but I’m not sure I do. Even though I have lived the change multiple times, we all have, is it ever the same? But the phrase that keeps echoing through my head which I have written about before is this; “Just the next right thing.” What is the next right thing? It’s simply one thing at a time. Looking at the semester ahead of me, yes it’s overwhelming to look at six syllabi with every single thing I will have to do this semester. But if I don’t look at it from the whole and simply from the next right thing, it’s manageable. As I was sitting with a friend talking minimally about my fears about going into this school year, they reminded me that no matter what happens, we are in it together. They are walking with me and I with them. Isn’t that the truth. How many of us have people walking with us? Even when you don’t think you do, you do. You’re never alone. Even if at times, it’s only God that is walking with you. But NEVER will you walk alone. And no matter what happens within the change, we’re in it together. I am with you. Every step of the way.

As I’m writing this, the song playing in the background is repeating the words, “it turns out fine, it turns out fine.” And it will. It does. Because our God is good. God’s love is endless, boundless never ending and never fading. So let’s face these changes head on, focusing on the next right thing. And when it all gets to be too much, know that you have people who are a simple phone call away.

Don’t be afraid to call.

Walking with you,

Jess